Tag: Olga Kurylenko

It’s been three decades in the making but Terry Gilliam has finally done it! For so long, the spectre of cinematic death has loomed large over his project but the fact that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has been released at all represents a marvel of Directorial tenacity. It certainly was an ambitious assignment, made more so by some spectacular bad luck; illness, floods, financial difficulties and a number of other studio ailments. But finally it’s here and it’s wonderful to see Gilliam having the last laugh…. even if his film isn’t very good.

Quixote is unmistakably a Gilliam film, popping and fizzing with the ex-Python’s eccentric grandeur. A testament to its lengthy gestation, the film runs the stylistic gamut of his back-catalogue; breathing the leathery pungency of Time Bandits, the derailed loopiness of Brazil and the woozy nausea of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The story (confused as it is), operates as a fevered auto-biopic of a Director’s arm-wrestle with his art. Adam Driver plays Toby, an aspiring feature Director who has been put out to pasture on a diet of advertising work. Cynical of his vocation and struggling for motivation, he relives his past through a chance job located in rural Spain where his career began. The film blurs the lines between reality and fantasy as he reconnects with a village cobbler who thinks he is the famed Don Quixote de la Mancha (played by the wonderful Jonathan Pryce). Toby’s flirtation with Quixote’s delusions leads them both down a comical path of madness and redemption.

Quixote’s grand visual style is undoubtedly mesmerising, but unfortunately the writing bloats a production already struggling to support the weight of its troubled past, unduly hampering it with swathes of incoherence too bothersome to wade through. Indeed, when Driver exclaims midway through the film “This is insane!”, I think he might’ve mistaken his line for a margin note. Alas, Gilliam has clearly suffered from his lengthy stare down this production’s endless rabbit hole. And despite periods of biting comedy and some delightful old-school production heft, this is a project that would’ve been better to have died on the vine.

Scottish writer/director Armando Iannucci (Veep, The Thick of It) has taken his politically-charged brand of comedy to the big screen and adapted Fabien Nury’s absurdist satirical comic, which parodies events surrounding the demise of one of the world’s most ruthless dictators.

In what feels like a blend of Guy Ritchie’s gangster caper Snatch and Christopher Morris’s topically awkward black comedy about incompetent British jihadists (Four Lions), The Death of Stalin depicts the tyrant’s final days and the ensuing political scramble to fill the power vacuum. In the best traditions of British farcical humour, the film follows a Soviet committee of bumbling buffoons with knives drawn and ready to plunge into the back of their respective comrades … all for the betterment of the Soviet Union, of course.

In particular, Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) and Lavrenti Beria (brilliantly played by Simon Russell Beale) duke it out in a bloody political game of chess.What is astonishing are many of the details, which feel engineered for comedic effect, but are factually true—right down to the fumbling committee unable to find a doctor available to treat the ailing Stalin, because they had all been imprisoned or executed.

Sure, cinematic liberties have bent history a little out of shape, with events condensed and players shuffled, most likely to accommodate the impressive cast.Molotov (Michael Palin), for example, had resigned prior to the events unfolding in this film. Such tweaks will most likely irk historians … me? Nah, I’ll take Palin over some slight inaccuracies any day.

Although, those who can fully appreciate the gravity of Stalin’s murderous regime might find something a little off with having a laugh at the expense of those who suffered. There’s a nagging sense of something sour in your popcorn, a whiff of guilt at every chuckle. One could argue that such humour is at the very heart of what it means to be a “black comedy” and ultimately, it will be to personal taste if the subject matter spoils it for you.Shame, because there are some moments of genuine comedic gold here.